http://www.saturndaily.com/index.html Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST en-us Sand dunes are common on Earth, Mars, Venus and - unexpectedly - on Saturn's giant moon, Titan. Now detailed analysis of radar observations gathered during the Cassini spacecraft's flybys of cloud-shrouded Titan is enabling scientists to understand the distribution, shape and dimension of its exotic dunes. Most people are familiar with the piles of loose, granular material which make up sa]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST A new analysis of radar data from the international Cassini spacecraft has revealed regional variations amongst Titan's sand dunes. The result yields new clues to the giant moon's climatic and geological history. Dune fields are common on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, second only to the seemingly uniform plains that cover most of the surface. They cover about 13% of Titan, stretching]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST In the distant outer Solar System, rings are nearly ubiquitous. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all have rings, leaving Pluto as the only outer planet without rings. But PSI Senior Scientist Henry Throop would love to change that. Using both giant telescopes on Earth, and a small spacecraft currently on its way to Pluto, Throop is searching for signs that Pluto may have rings orbiting]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST Saturn's moon Mimas peeks out from behind the night side of the larger moon Dione in this Cassini image captured during the spacecraft's Dec. 12, 2011, flyby of Dione. Dione is 698 miles, or 1,123 kilometers, across and its day side dominates the view on the right of the image. Smaller Mimas is on the left and measures 246 miles, or 396 kilometers, across. Lit terrain seen here is on]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST Saturn's moon Titan may be more like Earth-like than previously thought with a layered atmosphere just like our planet, European researchers said. Titan is the only moon in the solar system known to have a dense atmosphere, and its lowest layer, known as its boundary layer, is most influenced by its surface. This is true of any world possessing a dense atmosphere, researchers sai]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST A team of astrophysicists from the University of Rochester and Europe has discovered a ring system in the constellation Centaurus that invites comparisons to Saturn. The scientists, led by Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy Eric Mamajek of Rochester and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, used data from the international SuperWASP (Wide Angle Search for Planets) and All ]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST NASA says it's conducting diagnostic tests on its Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn after its signal was not detected during a tracking pass in late December. The spacecraft has been communicating with Earth using a backup radio system, the space agency said in a release Thursday. The problem centers on the ultra-stable oscillator, used for radio science experiments and also as ]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is an intriguing, alien world that's covered in a thick atmosphere with abundant methane. With an average surface temperature of a brisk -300 degrees Fahrenheit (about 90 kelvins) and a diameter just less than half of Earth's, Titan boasts methane clouds and fog, as well as rainstorms and plentiful lakes of liquid methane. It's the only place in the solar system, ot]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST A team of scientists has traveled to remote Laguna Negra in the central Andes of Chile to test technologies that could one day be used to explore the lakes of Titan. The Planetary Lake Lander (PLL) project is led by Principal Investigator Nathalie Cabrol of the NASA Ames Research Center and the SETI Institute, and is funded by the NASA Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets (A]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is an intriguing, alien world that's covered in a thick atmosphere with abundant methane. With an average surface temperature of a brisk -297 degrees Fahrenheit (about 90 kelvins) and a diameter just less than half of Earth's, Titan boasts methane clouds and fog, as well as rainstorms and plentiful lakes of liquid methane. It's the only place in the solar system, ot]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST Saturn's third-largest moon Dione can be seen through the haze of its largest moon, Titan, in this view of the two posing before the planet and its rings from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The north polar hood can be seen on Titan appearing as a detached layer at the top of the moon here. See PIA08137 and PIA09739 to learn more about Titan's atmosphere and the north polar hood. See PIA1]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST NASA's Cassini spacecraft successfully completed its closest-ever pass over Saturn's moon Dione on Monday, Dec. 12, slaloming its way through the Saturn system on its way to tomorrow's close flyby of Titan. Cassini is expected to glide about 2,200 miles (3,600 kilometers) over the Titan surface on Dec. 13. In the selection of the raw images obtained during the Cassini Dione flyby, Di]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST In 1977, Jimmy Carter was sworn in as president, Elvis died, Virginia park ranger Roy Sullivan was hit by lightning a record seventh time, and two NASA space probes destined to turn planetary science on its head launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The identical spacecraft, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, were launched in the summer and programmed to pass by Jupiter and Saturn on different paths. V]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST In an action-packed day and a half, NASA's Cassini spacecraft will be making its closest swoop over the surface of Saturn's moon Dione and scrutinizing the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. The closest approach to Dione, about 61 miles (99 kilometers) above the surface, will take place at about 1:39 a.m. PST (4:39 a.m. EST) on Dec. 12. One of the questions Cassini scientists will]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST The moon Enceladus, one of the jewels of the Saturn system, sparkles peculiarly bright in new images obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The images of the moon, the first ever taken of Enceladus with Cassini's synthetic aperture radar, reveal new details of some of the grooves in the moon's south polar region and unexpected textures in the ice. These images, obtained on Nov. 6, 2011, ar]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST